When it comes to bringing stunning dining rooms to life, the architects and designers of the AD100 have a wealth of knowledge and ideas. We’ve gathered dazzling dining areas from the archives of Architectural Digest, along with tips from their talented creators. See some of the stylish spaces by Peter Marino, Alexa Hampton, the firm Olson Kundig, and other current and past honorees.

Juan Miró and his partner, Miguel Rivera, of Miró Rivera Architects, conceived a 2,500-square-foot guesthouse on Lake Austin in Texas. Floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining and living areas look out onto a curvilinear terrace whose footprint mirrors the shape of the deep overhang that shades it. Miró and Rivera worked with Joy Kling, of Spazio Interiors, on the furnishings. (April 2007)

In the New Orleans area, clients commissioned architect Ken Tate to create a residential compound with regional character, and designer Ann Holden took advantage of the five-year construction period to find the perfect pieces for each room. Artists from Gracie Studio in New York painted the dining room mural of a misty Louisiana swamp scene. The husband hoped the artists would emulate the style of Joseph Rusling Meeker, and he brought them to New Orleans for a swamp tour by seaplane. “This room sets the tone for the spirit of the house,” declares Tate. (July 2009)

Mark Ferguson and his team at the architectural firm Ferguson & Shamamian partnered with designer Sandra Nunnerley to restore a family’s Manhattan residence to its 1930s glory. The dining room now takes on multiple functions, serving also as a library and study. (February 2009)

Mark Boone, of London Boone, designed his 1920s home in Los Angeles. “I tried to maintain an English cottage feeling with antiques, while injecting modern pieces to add interest and color,” says Boone. A paper chandelier is over an 1840s French wine-tasting table in the dining room, surrounded by a set of Orkney Island chairs that he adapted for the Mimi London showroom. (September 2002)

A Georgian-style house in New Jersey’s horse country was a collaboration between architect Allan Greenberg and interior designer Elissa Cullman of Cullman & Kravis. A rare 18th-century Chinese wallpaper, from Gracie, envelops the dining room. “It’s like walking into a work of art. Every bird and leaf is painted differently—it’s an incredible tour de force.” (October 2009)

“Everything is consonant with the impulse of small, simple refuge,” San Francisco architect Jim Jennings says of the Palm Springs house he and writer Therese Bissell use as a weekend retreat. With the San Jacinto Mountains as its backdrop, the structure is defined by concrete-block grid patterns. “The house is an antidote to urban living,” says Jennings. The décor of the house complements the spare aesthetic of the architecture. Jennings designed the gel-coated-fiberglass table and benches in the front courtyard, which also functions as the main dining area. (September 2009)

Martyn Lawrence-Bullard and Trip Haenisch, of Martynus-Tripp, created a European villa-style interior for a Los Angeles house designed by Harold W. Levitt in the early 1990s. The dining room features a two-panel work by Edouard Vuillard, Sacha Guitry dans les Coulisses du Théâtre, 1922, depicting the Moulin Rouge. (November 2005)

On historic Mount Brilliant Farm in Kentucky, architect Elby S. Martin and designer Mona Hajj turned an 8,600-square-foot fire-damaged carriage house into the owners’ residence. In the large dining room, Hajj hung a gold-framed George III mirror against the raw wood paneling, and covered the table—that can comfortably seat 18—with an antique Turkish wall hanging. (June 2010)

“It had charm, but it was dilapidated. We stripped it to the bare architecture,” designer Nicholas Haslam says of Villa Corinne, the guesthouse he and Colette Van den Thillart renovated for Konstantin and Natasha Kagalovsky in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France. The dining room “was a gloomy 19th-century affair,” says Van den Thillart. They whitewashed the woodwork and painted the upper walls to look like porcelain tiles. (March 2008)

“It’s light, ethereal, sharp, crisp and comfortable above all,” architect and designer Campion Platt says of the SoHo penthouse he gutted, then redesigned for his wife, Tatiana. “I take more risks and certainly experiment more—with scale, proportion, coloring, lighting,” Platt says of his approach to his own interiors. “The focus in the main area was to create many rooms within one.” A Swarovski-crystal chandelier anchors the dining area. The painting is by Hunt Slonem. (September 2007)

Designers Thomas Allardyce and Illya Hendrix and architect Thomas Jakway combined two apartments to create a Neoclassical residence in Chicago. In the dining room—where wallcoverings and other fabrics cast a warm, golden glow, as they do in all these rooms—a 19th-century, Louis XIV-style repoussé mirror hangs above a painted and marble-topped sideboard. Six Hendrix Allardyce-designed chairs, covered in antiqued leather, surround a 19th-century table. (May 2007)

Working within the constraints of an existing towerlike structure situated on a steep site overlooking the Mediterranean, architect Norman Foster created a seven-level, 6,500-square-foot modernist villa. “The dining level is elevated above the living level and main terrace for clear, uninterrupted views out to sea,” notes Foster. He designed the glass-and-stainless-steel table. (October 2006)

“We created a modernist aesthetic that still expresses warmth,” designer Katherine Newman says of her Toronto house, which she renovated with her partner, architect Peter Cebulak. The dining room overlooks a garden. The painting is French Wig, 1998, by Gary Komarin. A 19th-century Russian crystal chandelier illuminates the ivory-lacquered table that she and Cebulak designed. (September 2005)

Philip Vogelzang and Katy McCoy chose architect Tom Kundig to design their house in the Queen Anne Hill area of Seattle. “The fireplace,” says Kundig, “is the anchor of the main floor,” which consists of the living and dining areas and the kitchen. All three open to views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. “There’s a lot of blurring of indoor and outdoor space,” McCoy adds. (October 2007)

In San Francisco, architect Michael Palladino and interior designer Rick Irving, of Richard Meier & Partners Architects, reconfigured the interior spaces of a Pacific Heights apartment. From the dining area, Keith Haring’s Self Portrait, 1998, is visible in the east gallery. Moody, 1998, by Dan Corbin stands next to the opening. The table, conceived by Richard Meier & Partners, is made of low-iron glass with white-oak, gunmetal and stainless-steel supports. (October 2009)

James and Lisa Cohen hired Montecito, California-based architectural designer James Nigro and Manhattan-based interior designer Alexa Hampton to help shape a Tudor-style house for them near the Hudson River. Above the marble fire surround in the dining room hangs a copy, commissioned by the Cohens, of the Royal Collection portrait of the future Elizabeth I. (February 2007)

For a residence near Carmel, California, Buzz Yudell and Mario Violich, of Moore Ruble Yudell, “translated the landscape into a series of ideas about design,” explains Violich. The firm’s buildings have always been distinguished by the way they felicitously connect with their sites. A courtyard off the dining area brings light and views inside. (October 2008)

While constructing a contemporary house for a couple in Sonoma, California, architect Harvey Sanchez and his son, Conrad, asked designer Ron Mann to help with the architecture and build out and decorate the interiors. The great room is enveloped in floor-to-ceiling windows that visually bring the live oaks in. Mann designed many pieces for the house, including an eight-foot-wide steel dining table capable of spinning like a gigantic lazy Susan. The banana photomural is by Lenny Eiger. (July 2008)

Architect Brooks Walker and interior designer Douglas Durkin renovated a 1951 William Wurster house in San Francisco. The dining area is framed by a floating wall that displays a 2007 photogram by Adam Fuss. “The dining chairs are by Carlo Hauner,” notes Durkin. (February 2010)

Soon after attending an open-house reception for Marmol Radziner Prefab’s prototype, a Colorado couple commissioned the firm to create a custom prefab residence for vacation use. With their sliding glass doors transitioning to covered decks, the dining and living areas, which feature furniture by Marmol Radziner, extend effortlessly into nature. (October 2008)

For an 8,500-square-foot penthouse apartment in Chicago, interior designer Juan Pablo Molyneux created an opulent interior inspired by 17th- and 18th-century France. The dining room is a nocturne of pure virtuosity. The walls are paneled in gilt-embossed leather, and the table carpet is a masterpiece of 17th-century needlework—“one of the rarest textiles of its kind ever to be auctioned,” says Molyneux. Lovebirds and pansies on a suite of Louis XVI chairs, precious ewers on a giltwood console, famille verte cachepots blooming with orchids and an Empire chandelier dripping with crystal ought to be—but somehow are not—too much. (November 2009)

Architect Howard J. Backen designed a house for a couple in California’s Napa Valley. “The large openings help transform a man-made structure into a natural element,” he says. The dining area looks out on the pond. (January 2004)

Architect Peter Marino brought a 1930s sensibility to a couple’s duplex in Paris, housed in the Palais-Royal. The dining room—a sliver of space on the main floor—is “incredibly deep and narrow,” Marino remarks, “just 10 by 17 feet. I designed a modern monk’s table of palmwood that barely measures 24 inches, and I paneled the walls in parchment to give them luster.” A tall ceiling accommodates a monumental photograph by Thomas Struth. Beyond is a portrait of Andy Warhol by Vik Muniz. (December 2003)

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